Condor's Flight
by freifraufischer
Summary: An Alternate Universe, where Stargate characters are in a WWII spy drama. For Army Air Force flyer John Sheppard being shot down was just the beginning of his problems. Attempting to return to England via Neutral Spain he encounters a woman he'll never forget. Sheppard/Weir, with a small amount of O'Neill/Weir. The first of two stories in the ShadowGate Universe.
1. Chapter 1

November 1942

_Madrid, Spain_

For Captain John Sheppard, home was always a rather nebulous concept, but right now he would settle for his bed safe in England. There was half a loaf of bread in his pocket that seemed like a ton of lead when his stomach growled, but he had been saving it for his copilot, who was walking unsteadily beside him. He wasn't entirely sure, but he thought Lorne's injuries were far worse than he had let on over the course of their journey through occupied France.

When they had bailed out of the B-17, Lorne had been slammed against the belly of the plane and broke his arm hitting the ball turret. Sheppard had been lucky not to have the same fate or worse. He could still close his eyes and count the rivets on the underbelly of the flying fortress as he passed it and missed the wing by a couple of feet at most. While he fell to the earth under the silk canopy of his parachute, he'd tried to spot the rest of his crew, but the plane exploded just after he'd cleared the aircraft, leaving him with a sickening realization. He'd lost eight men, dead or dying in the burning wreckage, and a hostile earth was coming up to meet him.

They'd had a few close calls in France and had to make a quick decision between going to Switzerland or Spain. In the end it came down to Lorne's health. Spain was closer and John was concerned about dragging his friend over the Alps. Neither of them had really counted on the Pyrenees being as tall as they were, or Spain being as desolate once they crossed over.

On an intellectual level Sheppard knew what bombs did to towns and cities. After all he dropped them, and despite what the bombardiers said about their precious Norton Bomb Sight he was sure that they hadn't worked out enough of the mathematics to really place the bombs on the factories or rail yards they were aiming at. Not to mention that rail yards weren't something easily destroyed by high explosive bombs, but the cities they were next to were. There were all things he understood on one level, but carefully walled off so that he could go to briefings every day and fly his plane and not think about the earth below.

Now that he was on the earth below and walking through Spain he could see what war did, even five years after the fact. The plan had been simple: make their way to Spain, to Madrid, and just walk up to the United States Embassy, but in many ways, it seemed so much easier to walk through occupied France. In Catalonia and the Basque country, they passed by entire towns wiped off the face of the earth. Shells of buildings inhabited by ghostly children without parents and Spanish police who drove through in armored cars with machine guns at the ready to destroy whatever threat they came upon. The Spanish Civil War had been a background to his undergraduate college days five years before, and the fight between the Republicans defending democracy (or imposing communism depending on whom one asked) and the German-supported Nationalists seemed so much more romantic than the aftermath clearly was. The reality of the war was likely not that romantic either, but it was still very far removed from American life. To John Sheppard it seemed to him the line between civilization and barbarism was blurry, and he wondered about those places where his own bombs landed and if it was really any different.

He was glad at any rate that they were at the end of their journey, and unlike those devastated Basque towns Madrid seemed to be a busy and busting city. Not quite Chicago, but not everywhere could be Chicago. Still, if he looked closely even here he could see the scars of the Civil War and he would be happy to see the gates of the Embassy.

The bombed-out buildings, though, seemed to be neatly contained, in small piles of building materials. The people on the street seemed either to be well dressed and wealthy or desperately poor, with the usual smattering of military uniforms. Well, usual for a London or New York these days, but it was probably a little odd for a city at peace. John was wishing that he'd read a bit more of Hemingway.

He was also wishing they had more to eat as the smells of the street café made him think again of the hunk of bread in his pocket. He was lost in his own thoughts that he didn't see the slap coming, and he stood there for a stunned second registering it.

"¡Juan, tu borracho perezoso, mi madre empleó a ti y a tu hermano para fijar su plomero hoy! ¿Estás tu alambique borracho, o tu estás buscando otra barra? ¡Debo encenderle!"

The screaming madwoman—at least that was the way he'd immediately qualified her in his mind—was a brunette in a pretty dress. She had legs that seemed to go on forever but also like a stiff wind might blow her over… an impression countered by the sting of the slap still radiating in his face.

"Entran el coche ahora! Vamos a la casa de su madre. Van!"

He glanced lightly confused to Lorne, who spoke a little Spanish from growing up in New Mexico. Or understood more than he spoke. Lorne leaned in and spoke low. "Something about a plumber named Juan…. And she thinks you're drunk."

"I'd like to be, does that count?" She had opened the door to a car and was gesturing for them to get in. "I think we should get in."

"You'd go anywhere with a pretty woman, Shep… this isn't a good idea."

She then grabbed Lorne by his injured arm, and he winced as she pulled him into the car. John followed, a little unsure what else to do. Once the car was started up and she was driving he looked over at Lorne again. "This is surreal. I hope you know how to fix pipes."

"It could be worse. Bulls could start running down the street."

"Wrong city for that." The brunette suddenly acquired the ability to speak in English. "I think you've read _The Sun Also Rises_ too many times. I hope the two of you know how to fly planes better than you do how to walk around unnoticed." They both turned their heads forward to see her eyes in the rear view mirror. "You were about to walk into a Civil Guard check point and probably get arrested."

"Hey, I loved that book!" He had to break eye contact after a moment with the belated realization, "You're American."

"Shep, I think you win a prize," Muttered in Lorne from the corner.

Her accent was crisp and clear and made him think of sophisticated college girls, though this woman had clearly been out of college for a decade. "Your boots are American too, I spotted them half a block away from a café." Her evaluation had a certain degree of coldness in her voice, underlaid by quick breathing. "I needed to distract attention from you."

John nodded. "Everyone on the street remembers the crazy woman, and not the drunk workers." It occurred to John that perhaps he should introduce himself. "Captain John Sheppard and Lieutenant Marcus Lorne, 8th Air Force."

"Nice to meet you, Captain. And yes, that was the plan. I'm taking you to my apartment while I figure out what to do with you."

"As much as I like going home with a woman on a first date, we were heading for the embassy."

John was mildly annoyed when she seemed to blow right past his flirtation like a cold wind. "You can't just walk into the embassy, you have to pass a civil guard checkpoint. They're looking for flyers and you'd end up in an internment camp for the rest of the war with visitors from the German armed forces."

"I thought Spain was neutral," Lorne piped up from behind her.

She turned around as she came to a stop in front of a four-story apartment building. "I take it you believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus too? General Franco is neutral in name only; little goes on in Madrid in the afternoon that isn't known in Berlin the following morning. Come on, let's get you inside and cleaned up."

John wasn't sure if he was grateful or annoyed with this pushy woman. "We don't even know your name, lady."

"Weir. Elizabeth Weir. I work at the embassy."

She opened doors and they had to walk up the stairs to the third floor before she nodded to a door and let them in. The apartment was tastefully decorated with a few pieces of art and nice furniture. There was a dark-skinned woman in the kitchen who looked up when they came in. "Teyla, son amigos_._" There was something in the way spoke to the other woman that made John think there was an undercurrent of information not spoken.

Elizabeth gestured for them to sit down. "I'll run some water for you so you can clean up and shave. I might have some clothes that you can wear too. Careful of Teyla, she fought with the Reds during the war and doesn't care for pilots much. Even when they're on her side."

The other woman's eyes narrowed at the two of them. "Cerdos capitalistas."

Lorne looked slightly alarmed and moved a few feet from her but tried shift the subject. "I'm not sure telling Shep to shave will do much good, Miss Weir. He'll just look scruffy again ten minutes later."

"Ah, but Lieutenant, he won't smell like that ten minutes later." She grinned at them both. "I'm going to go over to the embassy and ask my boss what to do with you. Don't leave the apartment."

After she departed, Lorne tried smiling at the communist maid, it wasn't that hard, she was easy on the eyes. She smiled back but something about it made John think she trusted them about as far as she could throw them.

"Should we leave, Captain?"

"I don't think I want to cross Teyla or Miss Weir."

"You're a sucker for pretty women, Sheppard."


	2. Chapter 2

"You do know, Elizabeth, that this is not your job?" There was a bit of scolding George Hammond's voice as he watched her from behind his desk in the embassy basement. She sat across from him with her hands folded in her lap like he was sure she had been taught in finishing schools back in New York.

"Yes, sir, I know this isn't my job."

"You know we have people who specifically do this sort of thing?"

"Sir, what was I supposed to do? They were right there…"

He smiled again and shook his head. "Where are they now? What is their condition?"

"They're at my apartment, Teyla is watching over them. I think one of them is injured. I'm going to contact a doctor I trust before I go back home, but I thought you should know first. What else should I have done?"

That was his young protégé all right, always wanting to do the right thing. "It probably wouldn't have hurt the boys to spend the war in a Spanish internment camp, but what's done is done and we hope they don't compromise you or the network. It will take me a few days to get papers for them made up, and we'll have to put them on the plane to Lisbon on Monday. Do you think you can control them between now and then?"

"I'll manage them, sir."

Manage, not control. He'd long ago gotten used to listening to the words Elizabeth used in her reports. They were all chosen carefully. But for now he just nodded, but as she got up to leave he called back. "Elizabeth, I spoke to Colonel O'Neill the other day…"

She stopped at the door to look back, a slightly guilty took on her face. "Yes sir?"

"He's been a friend for a long time, and he's frustrated right now with sitting out the war here instead of in the action…"

"Sir, with all due respect… my love life is a little outside of your authority, and my father is an ocean away." The rebuke did not make him mad though, as he did deserve it, but she quickly added, "Though I think I'd rather have you giving me advice than him. It's been over for a couple of weeks, but I'll always care about him. I don't want to see him hurting any more than you do."

Hammond nodded, and let her go without pushing the point harder. She was a grown woman, and a good agent after all.

When John Sheppard woke up it took him a moment to register where he was, and another to get up the willpower to get out of the soft bed that he imagined smelled like her. Lorne was laying a few feet from him and he watched his friend sleeping for a bit, wondering just how badly he was hurt… for about the four hundredth time since they'd landed.

It took him a moment to register the voices from the other room. It was the two men's voices that drew his attentions and he dismissed the remaining fogginess of sleep to try and concentrate and hear what they were saying.

"I always knew I should hit you over the back of the head and dump your body in a dark alley, you pencil necked little nerd…"

**He heard Weir answer, but couldn't make out any of the words, just that she sounded distressed**. He turned to wake Lorne up but he seemed to have done that without prompting and was standing behind him. "Damn it, why do you always do that…" John whispered, but did not wait for the answer. He nodded to the door, and then reached for it to quickly open it and storm into the living room to defend their hostess.

He wasn't sure what he expected to find when he burst into the room, but Weir standing between two men, one of them in an American army uniform, was definitely not one of them. His eyes landed on the collar of the army officer, and seeing the shining, silver birds, he jumped to attention. Lorne followed with an almost inaudible groan.

There was something a little theatrical about the scene now. He wasn't sure if it was the Three Stooges or a French farce though. There was a dark-haired man in glasses standing by the window. He was probably the little nerd, dressed in a leather jacket and looking a bit like he'd been caught at something. The other man was older, with graying hair and World War I campaign ribbons on his blouse. Between them, trying to maintain more dignity than she probably felt right now, was Weir, and behind her was the maid with a large kitchen knife in her hand. Too many people to be the Stooges, he supposed.

The colonel assessed the situation and what had to have been a powerful rage seemed to quickly cool. He looked over the two flyers and back at Elizabeth. "I know you go for **tall, dark, and dangerous**, Liz, but isn't this a little ridiculous? Besides, that one's a bit short for you." He jerked his head in Lorne's direction.

"Jack…." John recognized the tone of voice Weir was using. He'd had a few girlfriends use it on him in the past, and suddenly the situation was very clear to him. Before she could continue, though, there was a knock on the door and everyone in the room froze a bit in fear… except for Elizabeth who inhaled for a moment and calmly walked to the door and peeked out before opening it. "You don't know how glad I am to see you…."

The new entrant was a short red head carrying a large bag. She also assessed the situation. "Having parties without inviting me, Elizabeth. I'm hurt. Where is my patient?" But before Elizabeth could answer she sized Sheppard and Lorne up and zeroed in on Lorne. "You look pale and pasty and like you're about to fall down on your feet. Are you trying to make your condition worse? Teyla, can you help me get him back to bed?"

"Si, doctora." Teyla put down the knife and came over to help.

"I take it this is the doctor?" John asked Elizabeth with a slight smile as his friend was being moved back to bed, but she didn't get to answer before the colonel.

"So she tells me. I'd rather call her a Napoleonic power monger. Isn't that right, your holiness?"

The doctor didn't answer, but just smiled a little. However Weir did jump in. "She's a countess, Jack, not the Pope."

"I don't have to wear funny hats," the doctor piped in.

"Not helping, Janet."

"I'm already doing my good deed for the day, Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth…." The other man by the window spoke for the first time. "I think I should come back for those packages tomorrow. This seems like an atrociously bad time."

"It is, Daniel, I'm sorry." With that he slipped out behind the colonel, giving him a wary look as he did.

Weir turned back to the colonel, who was looking at her with what John almost wanted to call the face of a kicked puppy. "I never could make you laugh at the right times." With that he put on his hat and turned to leave.

"Jack…" Elizabeth called after him, but he didn't stop.

Once he was gone Sheppard looked over at Weir. She was flushed in the face and bits fo her hair had escaped their neat places a bit like the chaos that was around her. "Boyfriend?"

"Ex. Recent."

"Isn't he a little old for you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Doctor Fraiser, do you mind if I take the other flyboy out and get some coffee? There are too many people in my apartment right now."

"Go on, Elizabeth. This may take a while."

She picked up a fedora and put it on John's head, and practically dragged him for a minute before he fell into line with her. Once outside he glanced over at her. "Where are we going?"

"There's a café on the corner that serves good strong coffee."

"And will you explain what all of that was about there?"

"Many things were going on there, Captain."

Once at the café, Elizabeth ordered for them and they found a table far away from anyone else. "Well?" John prompted.

"Which part?"

"Let's start with the colonel in uniform. The ex."

She sighed and held her coffee cup between her hands. "Colonel Jack O'Neill is the American military liaison. We dated for about five months and it's been over for a bit. His mind is somewhere else right now."

"Like the war?"

"Pretty much."

"And four eyes?"

"Dr. Daniel Jackson. He's an archeologist working on Moorish ruins."

"Are you dating him?"

"No. Next subject." 

Suddenly John decided that he had a bit more sympathy for the colonel than he had for her. In her eyes he could see certain warmth that she seemed to consciously kill with her words.

"Was that woman really a doctor? She's American, right? Why did you call her a countess?"

"She's all three. Came to Spain during the Civil War with the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. I'm not sure if it was a need for adventure or just a need to help."

"She's another communist?"

Weir shook her head. "I think you've got the wrong impression, Captain. To be a communist in Spain is not the same thing as being a communist in the Soviet Union… and not everyone who fought for the Republicans was a communist."

He gave her his best cocky grin, trying to charm her and take the sting out of the woman's mood. "Enlighten me?"

She looked off for a moment and back at him. "You do know you've landed in the most complicated country on Earth, right?"

"I didn't land here, I landed next door and walked here." She chuckled; it was the first time he really thought he'd made her laugh. She should laugh more often he thought idly.

"Okay, so yes, the Republican government was socialist at the start of the war. But they were also a democratically elected government, and when the military launched the coup the only help they could find was from the Soviet Union. While the German and Italian governments were giving the Nationalists all the weapons and advisers they could ever need, the western democracies were silent. It gave the Soviets a lot of leverage and influence to make the Republican government more radical."

"And the doc?"

"Her hospital was captured, but the Nationalists kept her working. An officer fell in love with her, and I think she fell in love with him. They married…"

"And he was a count?"

"Yes, old influential family. They quickly fell out of love, but divorce is not such an easy thing in this country. They lived separate lives until he died fighting with the Spanish Blue Division on the Eastern Front a few months ago. So now she's the widow of a hero to the cause." Elizabeth smiled a bit. "When I need a doctor I can trust, she's who I call."

John sat up a bit when he saw a uniform coming towards them, and Elizabeth looked over her shoulder.

"Isabel." He was dark haired and John was reminded of Jack's comment about her liking the tall dark and handsome type. John tried to pay attention to the rapid Spanish the two were exchanging but he could only focus on the Iron cross and other German decorations on the man's breast…. And on how much she was flirting with him.

When they were finished talking the officer clicked his heels and bowed to John. He just smiled a not particularly warm smile back, and raised an eyebrow at Weir when he was gone. "He was friendly… and so were you."

"He's on leave from the Blue Division… they're volunteers fighting on the Russian front."

"Do you have a thing for men in uniform, or just fascists?"

"Captain…" she said in a low warning voice.

"Seems to me, Miss Weir, that you're having a pretty nice little war here, sitting on the sidelines and getting friendly with the enemy."

She sat back straight in her chair and for a brief moment John thought he saw hurt in her eyes before she looked away and stirred her coffee.


	3. Chapter 3

Elizabeth hadn't had much to say to John after they returned from coffee. Doc Fraiser had confirmed to them both that Lieutenant Lorne had sustained serious injuries including two broken ribs. There was some hemming and hawing around telling her exactly how he'd been injured, but after what seemed like eternity under the doctor's intense gaze, John admitted that he was sure that Lorne had hit the aircraft as he was bailing out of the B-17.

She'd given him something for the pain and Lorne was sleeping peacefully for the first time in days as far as John could tell. Weir had disappeared for a bit, and sitting in her bedroom with Lorne, John decided that it was the perfect time to find out what the hell this woman's game was.

Opening a closet revealed several expensive dresses and gowns. "I thought only Ingrid Bergman traveled through war zones with this kind of stash, Miss Weir," John mumbled to himself in annoyance as he picked through the party dresses of silk and other rich fabrics, idly thinking she probably looked good in red. He was at his depth of disgust with this New York debutant when something else caught his eye in the corner of the closet.

Crouching down he reached into the back and carefully pulled out the harsh gun metal of a German made submachine gun. "Hello, Miss Weir… what are you doing with this and where have you been all my life?" He pulled the magazine out and saw that it was loaded before slowly whistling and putting it back in.

From the other room he heard voices again, Dr. Jackson from that morning, and decided he was going to get some answers from this woman. Storming into room holding the Schmeisser by the receiver, he demanded, "Lady, you are going to tell me why the hell you have an MP-40 in your closet with your girl stuff right now."

Elizabeth and Daniel looked up from what they were doing and though Daniel looked like a little boy whose hand had just been caught in the cookie jar, Elizabeth walked right up to him and took the machine gun from him. "I've been wondering where that was for days. Where did you find it?" She gave him a sweet smile, and pulled the magazine from the weapon and cleared the bolt. "And it's an MP-38, not a 40, it doesn't have a safety, flyboy. So if you could, don't wave it around the apartment."

It was just than that he realized that the kitchen table was covered in enough weapons to take down a small country… German mostly, and what looked like some Spanish knockoff of colt pistols… and boxes of grenades. Elizabeth had walked back over to Daniel and continued her discussion. "I can't get you any more pineapples, can your people make do with potato mashers?"

"Excuse me?" John tried to interject into this surreal conversation he wasn't sure had to do with food… or with guns.

"Probably for the best anyway, they don't track back as easily."

"That's what General Hammond said."

"Excuse me?" John said louder, which got their attention. "I'd rather you not treat me like I'm not even in the room, lady."

Elizabeth fixed him with the deepest green eyes he thought he'd ever seen. "And I'd rather you not actually be in the room, Captain, but we don't get what we want in life, do we?" After taking him down a peg she turned to Jackson, "Doctor, do you think you can manage without me? I was supposed to be at the Baronesa de Urquiza's twenty minutes ago. Even in Spain there are limits on fashionably late."

He nodded, and with the coldest look John thought he'd ever seen she glanced over at him and left. Even after she'd parted he felt a chill go up his spine and a bit of shame for having gone through her closet. It took him a moment to recover his senses before looking over at Daniel. "Dr. Jackson… I don't think we met this morning. I'm Captain Sheppard."

Jackson shook his hand. "Daniel. Elizabeth told me about you. I don't suppose you can help me pack this stuff back up in the crates?" he asked, gesturing to the weapons.

"As long as I can ask you a few questions."

Daniel shifted a little. "You can ask. I may not answer."

"Is she a spy?"

"We get to that part about me not answering." He looked away.

"Okay, well, let's start less directly. She seems to travel in fast circles for someone who just works at the embassy. Lunch at the Baroness De Something Or Other?" Sheppard raised his eyebrow.

"I think Elizabeth was born traveling in fast circles. Her father is a Senator from New York. Before the war he had a lot of connections with … certain classes of European elite."

Now it was taking John his entire mind to travel back to those newsreels he hadn't paid attention when he'd taken his little sister to the movies. "Weir… Weir… hey, didn't he get thrown out of England a few years back? The British accused him of being a Nazi sympathizer?"

"Yeah, probably not something to mention to Elizabeth. He was a big isolationist but I don't think he actually was a Nazi sympathizer. He's being pretty quiet these days from my understanding."

Suddenly John connected all the dots, "But the Germans probably still think he's a sympathizer and that lets her…"

"Into circles in Madrid that most Americans can't get into right now. Yes."

"Is she a fascist?"

"Really now, Captain, she doesn't think you're stupid and neither do I. How many Republicans have you seen walking in and out of this apartment?"

It took John a moment to register what Jackson had just said, not just about Elizabeth's political leanings. "She doesn't think I'm stupid?"

Daniel chuckled at him, "You really are clueless about some things, aren't you?"

Elizabeth didn't return until well after dark, and slipped quietly into the apartment trying not to wake the boys. She moved about in the dark well, slipping off her shoes so as not to make much noise, pulling down a bottle of wine from the rack in the kitchen and slipping out onto the balcony overlooking the small inner courtyard of the building.

"You look like you've got a good place to think."

John's voice broke through her thoughts but didn't scare her as much as it rightly should have. She looked up at him without saying anything and he scuffed a foot a bit before settling down next to her and looking out at the garden and city beyond through the bars of the balcony railing.

"I think I owe you an apology."

"You think?"

"Okay, I definitely owe you an apology. I made assumptions about what I was seeing that turned out to be wrong."

"You don't have to apologize for that, Captain," she said quietly, looking away for a moment. "I was actively encouraging you to reach those assumptions. Controlling what people think of me has become so important to me that sometimes I forget to be myself."

"I barely know you. I really don't have the right to cast judgments on your social life."

"John, people have been making judgments about my social life since I was sixteen."

"Senator's daughter."

She just nodded.

"Seems to me that you are doing quite a bit more than that now," he began.

"I've always wanted to do quite a bit more than that. I watch my mother drive herself to lunacy worrying about silly things like table settings and where guests will sit or what charity ball she will attend."

"Somehow I can't see you doing that."

She smiled. "No… I decided after I watched my classmates at Wellesley getting the best education an American woman can have only to catch a husband that I wanted to do something productive. To save the world."

"And right now saving the world brings you here."

"Right now the world needs a lot of saving, Captain."

He smiled a little at that in the shadows and watched her face in the moonlight, admiring her form and her eyes that seemed to glow in the low light.

"You wanted to save the world. I wanted to escape it, I think."

It was her turn to raise an eyebrow.

"I was a math graduate student when I got my draft notice."

"Math." She smiled. "That doesn't quite fit your image."

"I'll have you know that I was a very popular teaching assistant at the University of Chicago."

"Of that I am sure." She laughed.

"You have a pretty laugh… you should do it more often."

She stopped for a moment and caught his eyes again. For a bit they watched each other in silence before they realized they were leaning towards one another, and the kiss came as a surprise to him as much as to her.

After a moment, with the taste of his lips still on hers, she looked back into his eyes. "I'm not sure we should have done that."

"Look, it's not that I don't know for damn sure we shouldn't be doing this, Elizabeth, it's that I don't really care."


	4. Chapter 4

They had spent the night sleeping on the balcony in the warm night air of Madrid. It reminded John Sheppard of a fling he had in London with a female RAF meteorologist he'd met on base. Except there were no air raid sirens and the city seemed unnaturally quiet to him. When he woke in the morning, Elizabeth was gone and he wondered briefly if the previous night had even occurred.

Slipping into the apartment he went to check on Lorne, who was awake and sitting up in bed. "How are you feeling, Sparky?"

"You know I hate that name, Sheppard."

"Of course I do, that's why I use it. How are you feeling?"

"Like I wish the doc had left some more pain drugs, but otherwise I think I'm fine."

"Why didn't you tell me you had broken ribs?"

"It's not like you could do anything about them, and I didn't want to slow you down."

John smiled a little. "Thanks."

Lorne nodded. "The dragon lady said she had to go to the embassy. You didn't sleep with her, did you, Shep?" His copilot watched him for a moment and shook his head. "You did."

"Not exactly."

"Not exactly? How do you not exactly sleep with someone?"

Sheppard just shook his head, and Lorne cleared his throat. Looking over his shoulder he saw Teyla standing in the doorway, with her eyes narrowed, before she left.

There had been three assassination attempts on George Hammond's life in the two years he'd been in Spain. His days in the field were long past him and now he had to satisfy himself that espionage was a game for the young. It was just a shame that the young grew old so quickly playing it. The morning diplomatic pouch had brought orders for his young protégé and he had called Elizabeth in to be briefed.

"You know the wife of the Blue Division Chief of Staff?"

"Yes, sir."

"Her husband's home on leave and the Russians want us to see if we can get a look at whatever reports he's taking back with him next week. They're hosting a party tomorrow. Can you manage an invitation?"

"I already have one, sir, but I wasn't planning on going because she wants me to bring a date."

"You've never been short of eager young men, Elizabeth."

She blushed a little. "Most of them I'd rather not take on an assignment where I have to crack a safe, sir."

"What about the ones in your apartment right now?"

Hammond thought he might have seen her blush deepen. "One of them has a couple broken ribs, which probably precludes him dancing, and I'd need cover for the other."

"We're still waiting on travel papers for them, but I'm sure I can get the embassy to dummy up credentials for him by the end of the day."

She seemed a little uncomfortable, but nodded. "Yes, sir, I'll inform him he's been drafted. Again."

When Elizabeth came home she had a clothing bag over her shoulder and handed it to John without explanation. "Colonel O'Neill loaned this to me. See if it fits."

Unzipping it to see a tuxedo, John raised an eyebrow. "Isn't this a little formal for walking around clothes?"

"Just a bit," she said smiling over broadly.

"What is it about girls wanting to put me in fancy clothes?"

Lorne laughed from behind him. "Shep, if you don't understand that, you are hopeless."

"I'm afraid I need to borrow you for the evening tomorrow."

"In a tuxedo?"

"We're going to a party with a bunch of Germans."

"In a tuxedo?"

"Is it just me or does the tuxedo bother you more than the idea of going to a party with a bunch of Germans?"

"I'm getting to that. Why do you want me to go to a party where there are Germans?"

She presented him with a set of papers. "Congratulations, Captain, you are now officially an embassy cryptographer. I need an escort I can trust, and my boss nominated you."

"We haven't actually gotten around to who you work for, you know that, Elizabeth?"

"The Office of Strategic Services. I hold the equivalent rank of Major, by the way." She grinned at him. "Now you know who I work for, and for the moment we can say I'm your boss."

He just smiled, "If you insist, ma'am. But if you've outranked me this whole time why haven't you said so?"

"Oh, don't think I haven't been tempted to knock you on the back of your head and pull rank, but I was trying to maintain my cover."

"Isn't that what you were doing last night?" He smiled innocently.

She turned red and it wasn't entirely clear if that was anger or embarrassment, but whichever it was, it got a smile from Lorne. "Okay, so that's what 'not exactly' means."


	5. Chapter 5

Lorne was laughing at him. This evening was starting out well, Elizabeth was getting dressed in the other room and all John Sheppard could think about is how much his friend was laughing because he couldn't manage to get the damn tie straight. For what seemed like the fiftieth time he undid the tie in front of the mirror and tried again to tie it before a set of hands came from behind him and he saw Teyla in the mirror tying the bow neatly. After finishing she turned him around and brushed a bit of fluff off his shoulder and smiled at him.

"If you break her heart, I will slit your throat." She spoke in clear English with a serene smile on her face before patting his face and turning to go back to working in the kitchen.

He was so shocked by the threat that it took him a moment to register that she spoke English, and it made him wonder even more what all that scary muttering in Spanish had been.

And Lorne was still laughing.

"This is not starting out well at all."

"I don't know, Captain, from my point of view it's starting out very nicely indeed." A female voice came from behind him.

He turned to see Elizabeth standing in the door of her bedroom, draped in a red gown that reminded him of an MGM musical and a mysterious dark-haired beauty. Katharine Hepburn. That was who he was thinking of. He couldn't help but smile at the sight.

"Are you ready, Miss Weir?" He offered an arm to her.

"I am indeed, but I'm driving."

"Damn."

The car ride was pretty uneventful and it was a bit into it before Elizabeth spoke up. "There won't be any friendly faces at this party, except perhaps Janet, but she doesn't like this crowd much and she can get away with not going. A mix of Spanish anticommunist true believers, Germans, Italians, and maybe a white Russian or two, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if I weren't the only agent there."

He nodded, listening and thinking that this was a little like one of those pre-mission briefings back in England where they told you about all the flak and fighters and then reminded you that you couldn't do much about either except throw spitballs at them. "What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing. Well, I'd like you to look pretty on my arm. The hostess is a bit old fashioned and she doesn't like women coming to parties alone."

"Elizabeth, how is it that you get invited to all these parties with the enemy?"

"I'm good at playing the social games."

John thought there was probably more to it than that, but she didn't sound like she wanted to elaborate more. "Are you armed?"

"There is a pistol in my purse, but you can be sure that if I have to shoot anyone we've got bigger problems."

"Got it, no shooting people at the party."

She chuckled from beside him and he felt gratified.

The party itself was held at a large estate and John kept wondering if he was going to stumble onto a planning meeting for the Spanish Armada. It was beautiful and obviously quite old, but had the feeling of decaying importance, a dead empire choked to death on its own excesses.

And then there were the uniforms. Most of them were Spanish but there were a few German army and SS uniforms and the sight of the black-clad figures and their deaths head badges made him think of the close calls he'd had in France after he and Lorne had bailed out. One of the Germans approached and bowed. "Fräulein Weir, it's been many years… what was it… 1938? That trip with your father?"

Elizabeth managed to smile and nod, and John was suddenly impressed with how easily she managed to put on a mask for any occasion. "I believe so, Graf. It seems like decade ago though, a different time and a different world."

He nodded. "Your father has been a great friend of the Reich and when this ugly business is over I hope see him again as a guest of Greater Germany." She nodded, and he gestured over towards a group of men talking. "I'd like to introduce you to someone if your date doesn't mind."

John just smiled and she nodded and was lead off towards the group. He thought he recognized a face in the crowd before a robust woman approached him. "Isabel always knows how to bring the best men to these things, but you are new!" He tried to reply, but the woman wearing enough makeup to supply a small circus didn't seem all that interesting in listening. "American men are always such good dancers, you must dance with me!"

Before he could stop her he was being dragged to the dance floor and though he kept trying to keep on eye on Elizabeth, the speed and excitement of his partner kept him from really keeping track well. He saw that she had gone onto the dance floor herself with one of the men (who was obviously a much better dancer) and after the song was over he extracted himself from the frightening socialite's grasp with the excuse of getting some air.

Like the house the garden was probably once an exacting demonstration of money, but with the thin layer of decay and overgrowth he was reminded of the state of the country. The ruin of civilization covered with a veil of progress. And like so many villages around the country, devoid of human life.

"She get distracted by other fresh meat?"

He turned around to see Elizabeth standing with two glasses of wine in her hands. "You enjoyed that."

"Of course I did, the good doctor was a lovely dancer and the idea of you being Countess Impellizzeri's latest target is amusing."

"Latest target?"

"She has a thing for handsome young men, but she has a bigger thing for powerful men. She's the mistress of Mussolini's head of secret police so rumor has it being the object of her affections can be a bit dangerous."

He winced. "Thanks for warning me. Say, what was that bit about your father and the German?"

Elizabeth laughed a bit bitterly. "My father campaigned for Hoover in New York in 1932. For a politician he's never picked a winning side in his life."

"In Roosevelt's home state? That took guts."

"Or delusions."

"Is he pro-German?"

"More anti-British, but he and I try not to talk about politics. His idea of the way political parties should be run involves gentlemen's clubs with a lot of scotch and cigars and rich men deciding what poor men should get out of life. And he doesn't believe girls have much place in it. Too messy for our delicate sensibilities."

"I don't know, I think I'd take you into a knife fight any day."

She smiled, and looked away after a moment.

"So who was the guy you were dancing with?"

"Some sort of scientist. Heisenberg was his name."

"Werner Heisenberg?" John raised an eyebrow. "1932 Nobel laureate in physics Werner Heisenberg, creator of quantum mechanics?"

"Ah, take it that you've heard of him."

"Yeah, one of my professors at the University of Chicago used to talk about his ideas. Excitable Italian guy who almost made me go into physics instead of math. Elizabeth, what is Germany's leading physicist doing in Spain?"

"That's a good question, and perhaps I should find out. John, I think I need you to entertain yourself for a bit while I go picking some locks."

"You know, for a society debutant you have a strange skill set?"

She just smiled. "Talk to the countess. She likes practicing her English."

"Gee, thanks."

Elizabeth was gone for twenty minutes, and he spent most of that time avoiding the Italian woman who liked to dance. When she returned she put her arm through his.

"John, I'm not feeling very well, can you drive me home?"

"But I didn't even get a dance." He mumbled.

She wasn't even paying attention to him so he didn't get an answer.

Once they were in the car and heading back to the city he looked over at her. "Get any interesting pictures?"

"Nothing that I understand, but I rarely understand these things. Something about a submarine getting some cargo from the Belgian Congo and shipping it via Spanish waters."

"U-boat?"

"Yes, U-235."

John was quiet for a moment, mulling the designation. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but the encounter with Heisenberg and the reference made him think of his old professor. "I don't think that's about a U-boat, Elizabeth."

"Either way, figuring out what it's about isn't my job. That's for the big brains back home."

When they arrived back at the apartment everyone was asleep, and Elizabeth seemed to be relaxing after what must have been several tense moments of sneaking around a crowded house. She took her wrap off and laid it over a chair and started laughing quietly.

"Is something wrong, Elizabeth?"

"I just took a handsome man to a party and I was so focused on being a damn spy that I forgot to get a dance." She seemed to be laughing at herself more than at him.

"You know we can dance now."

"There isn't any music."

"Who needs music?" He slipped his hand around her waist and began to rock slowly to the distant sounds of Madrid at night. She smiled after a moment, and laid her head on his shoulder and for the first time since meeting her John thought she was content.


	6. Chapter 6

Elizabeth woke up early the next morning before anyone else in the apartment and slipped quietly into the kitchen to make herself breakfast. As a teenager she'd taken some formal French cooking classes that her mother had assured her were so that she would know if the help was doing the job right. It wasn't until she had graduated from college that she'd had to cook a real meal for herself and she wouldn't say she was particularly good at it even now.

But everyone in Spain seemed to party late into the evening and sleep late in the morning so it really wasn't that fair to expect anyone to get up to serve her a big American breakfast. She had fried some eggs and made toast and coffee when there was a knock at the door and she opened it to find Jack.

"Hey," he said with a bit of a raised eyebrow and a small smile, "I smelled food and thought I'd come by."

"You were always a horrible liar, Jack." She just shook her head but stepped aside. "Coffee?"

"Black, thanks."

He'd once told her that he'd gotten used to drinking his coffee that way in the trenches if the first war and it never seemed quite right unless there were bits of grounds still floating in the mug. She poured him a cup and set it down on the small table in the kitchen. "The house is still asleep. If we're going to fight I'd like to do it quietly."

"I didn't come here to fight, Elizabeth."

"I'm glad. I hate the idea that you're always angry when I see you nowadays."

"Elizabeth, I'm not very good at this apology stuff, but George Hammond told me I was making an ass out of myself and I think he's probably right."

She raised an eyebrow.

"He also told me that you were young enough to be my daughter."

"Not quite." She smiled a bit at him.

"Anyway, I understand now why you do what you do, and I wanted to know if you would forgive me for acting like a jealous boyfriend."

"For being a jealous boyfriend, you mean?"

He had a micro smile on his face. "You used to let me get away with saying things like that."

"You didn't used to accuse random men in my life of sleeping with me."

"I know. Jealousy comes with loving someone you know is too good for you. And I was in love with you. I still am just a bit. Even if it can't be the way it was before, I'd like to see you smile more."

"I'd like to be your friend too, Jack."

She kissed him on the cheek and he smiled up at her. The moment seemed to Elizabeth to last forever until it was interrupted by the sound of someone clearing his throat. She looked up to see John in the door.

"I smelled coffee."

"Run, Captain, she makes scary coffee."

"Can't be any worse than the stuff they serve in the mess, sir."

Jack nodded, and looked back at Elizabeth. "George asked me to bring these by for you. Travel papers and plane tickets for the afternoon service to Lisbon for the boys, and then on to the States." That announcement stunned Elizabeth momentarily. A few days had seemed like so much longer to her and she really didn't want it to end.

"Sir," John objected, "I was hoping to go back to England, to my group."

"I know how you feel, Captain, but it's the way things work. If you were shot down again and the Germans found out you'd been in occupied territory before, you could be shot as a spy."

"Only one of us is allowed to be shot as a spy, John." Elizabeth smiled at him.

"Funny, Elizabeth."

She continued to grin.

"Anyway, your war is over, Captain. I expect you will get some instructor duty back home. From what I understand, you've probably just got a second chance at life."

John nodded, the two men knew what was implied there, and Elizabeth had some clue. Jack had once told her that the daylight bomber crews were taking pretty horrific losses.

"At any rate, you're in safe hands with Elizabeth. She'll get you where you need to go." Jack stood up and looked over at Elizabeth. "I'll stop by again tomorrow for bad coffee, and Teyla can threaten me some for old time's sake."

Elizabeth nodded and watched as he left, lost in thought before turning to John.

"I guess you're going to want me to cook for you too."

"I don't know, Elizabeth, those eggs look rather frightening."

She swatted him in the shoulder and just shook her head.

The car ride to the airport had been quiet, uncomfortably quiet for John as he watched the woman who had gotten him through the last few days. There was so much about her he still wondered about, not the least of which was how a well-bred young woman like her had gotten messed up in being a spy.

But when he was being honest with himself he knew that mystery just made her all the more attractive. After Lorne had started off towards the plane, he had stayed behind for a moment. "I want you to come with us." It was clear to him that she was desperately unhappy here.

She closed her eyes, and there was a long silence in the air. "Please don't ask me that, John. I'd be too tempted to say yes."

He wanted to argue with her, but her eyes were big and he couldn't look away from them. Instead he simply leaned in and kissed her long on the lips, savoring the last touch of them.

"After the war…"

She nodded, and without completing the thought she just repeated, "After the war."

He turned and headed towards the waiting plane to freedom. He knew he couldn't look back. If he looked back he couldn't leave.

But he did leave, carrying with him the thought that he would find Elizabeth Weir again… even if the entire world were on fire.


	7. Chapter 7

_Epilogue_

_August 8, 1945_

_Chicago, Illinois, United States_

For most of the three years after John and Lorne left Spain, Elizabeth Weir stayed, continuing working for the Office of Strategic Services in the highest reaches of Madrid society. In the summer of 1944, after the Generalissimo had long ago abandoned his German allies to the fate of history, she had been transferred to Paris to begin the long process of bringing war criminals to justice.

The horror of what they were seeing, even before the first of the camps was uncovered, weighed on those working on gathering evidence and finding the guilty. With a group of high-ranking allied officers, General Hammond had taken Elizabeth to see Dachau, a concentration camp in the otherwise idyllic Bavarian countryside. It was there that he had told her to go home, to recharge her energies, to remember life as they were swimming in the machinery of death.

And the first thing she wanted to do was not see her mother and father in the city or even at the family home in the Hudson Valley, but to rush to Chicago… She stayed in New York long enough for her sister's wedding, but only barely.

Elizabeth was standing in the Robie House near the University of Chicago campus with a glass of wine in her hand and paying a bit more attention to the beautiful house and its incredible construction rather than the members of the university's science and math faculty around her. She had caught a train from New York because a friend had told her that John might be attending the conference, and she had sat listening to the speakers politely, but she was at least honest with herself when she admitted that the subject matter was way over her head.

And she hadn't seen John there.

She had made up her mind to leave and pretend she hadn't ever come here on this schoolgirl lark when she saw a man standing in the doorway, looking at her. It was Major John Sheppard, with a crisp brown uniform, battle ribbons over one breast pocket and battered pilot's wings. A slightly crushed hat was under his arm, with the internal structure taken out in the very non-regulation way many pilots seemed to prefer.

She wanted to run up to him and hug him despite the crowd of scientists, mathematicians and engineers, but she remembered her manners and managed to slowly walk over with a grin on her face. As she drew near to him, her years of training to be a lady failed her and she threw herself into his arms in an enveloping hug.

"You look very good, Major. Tanned."

"So do you, Major." He smiled, emphasizing the not quite real OSS rank. "I've been stationed out in New Mexico, little place called Los Alamos."

She chuckled. "It's too bad I left that submachine gun in Europe. I could shoot you for that."

He just grinned. "Come on outside, I know a great set of stairs we can sit on and talk."

Naturally she slipped her arm into his as they walked and settled under the shade of a tree.

"Are you home for good, Elizabeth?"

"I'm afraid not," she replied, "My sister was getting married and General Hammond sent me home on some leave. I'm going back in a few weeks to work as a translator and interrogator of German prisoners. Try to sort the bad guys from the really bad guys." As she spoke she tried to sound excited about the work, but with the news coming from the Pacific a few days before all she could think was that in the grand scheme of the war what she had done was very little.

Socialized for the cause, she had told her sister in an embarrassed moment before the wedding.

"You'd be good at it. You are good at reading people." John fiddled with his hat.

"Do you still keep up with Marcus? Does he still have that annoying habit of running into airplanes as he jumps out of them?"

John chuckled. "Last I checked he'd gotten himself into B-29s over in the Pacific. He's the kind of guy who'd like the idea of his plane being bigger than anyone else's plane."

She smiled at the thought, "Boys and their toys."

"You were the one with lots of guns, lady," he pointed out with a grin.

"Point."

"How's the ex?"

"Jack died at Normandy." She said it matter-of-factly, but quietly. "He spent three years trying to get into the war and he finally succeeded. He once told me that when he was twenty years old he was sure he'd die in France. He was right, just twenty-seven years late."

All John could do to that was just nod. They'd all lost friends.

"At least he was doing something for the war."

"So were you."

"I keep trying to tell myself that, but really…"

"No, really, Elizabeth. You helped save the free world."

"John, have you been watching too many propaganda films?"

He looked around as if to see if anyone was listening, and then spoke very low. "You know that bomb they dropped a couple of days ago, on Hiroshima?"

"I've been hearing some bits about it, some sort of secret weapon. Like a really big bomb."

"Bigger than you can probably imagine. The Germans were trying to build one too, and that scientist you danced with… he's the one who was trying to do it. He needed a supply of uranium from Africa because Germany didn't have a natural supply. That U-235 you thought was a reference to a u-boat. All they had was taken from a warehouse in Belgium in 1940. You helped stop them from getting more. Elizabeth, I know a lot of scientists and engineers who prayed for people like you."

Elizabeth listened quietly, not wanting to interrupt.

John put his arm around her and pulled her towards him, whispering now quietly in her ear. "You told me once that you wanted to save the world. Don't ever question again that you had a large part in doing just that."

He held her for a little while before moving a bit of her hair behind her ear. "I sincerely hope your parents are shocked about a grown woman who came halfway across the country on an off chance of seeing a guy."

She smiled. "My mother is probably still having a fit. I take some comfort in this."

He laughed at that. "You have a strangely cruel streak in you Elizabeth. However, I think I want to take you out to dinner anyway, and dancing… without the Nazis and the scary Italian women."

"You still remember that?"

"Remember? I still have nightmares about her."

"You have nightmares about Spain?"

"And dreams…. About this amazing woman I thought I might never see again."

He stood up and offered her a hand to help her up. She kept hold of his hand and leaned into him as they walked into the evening air.

_fin_


End file.
